Ultra Sun and Moon being worked on by younger members of the Game Freak staff

It’s long been known that Game Freak tends to have two main-series Pokémon games in the works at any given time, with those games currently being Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon and the upcoming Pokémon game for Switch. Thanks to an interview from Gamespot with Shigeru Ohmori, we know a little more about how that works.

Ohmori spoke of the importance of allocating resources efficiently, since Game Freak only has a limited number of staff, stating that they have very varied staff within the company. Most interestingly, the long-serving director and designer revealed that Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are being worked on primarily by younger members of the Game Freak development team:

We have younger staff members and also veterans who have been working on the series for a long time, very technically gifted staff members. We want to use these staff in the best way possible. For example this time with Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon we can treat it mainly as a project for our younger staff to work on and grow and develop their skills, while perhaps the more veteran, established members of the company can work on the upcoming [Switch] project.

That’s an approach we often take: having a growth-based project for younger staff members and then a new project for the existing veterans. Using this project management style ensures all of our projects have a positive effect on one another as they go.

Don’t worry though, Ohmori says that there are company veterans watching over the project too, with Shigeki Morimoto — who’s been with the company since Red and Blue — working on the battle system. Other series veterans are also working on quality control, to make sure the games are up to the high standard that Game Freak (and players) expects.

You can read the full interview here. Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are scheduled to launch for the Nintendo 3DS on the 17th of November.